Madam Xia slumped to the ground, her elegant dress covered in dust. She gazed up at Bai Ying's face, so strikingly similar to her own, tears blurring her vision. Those eyes that had once looked at her with such expectation now held only a chilling coldness.
"Qingdai..." Her voice was broken and incoherent, her fingers unconsciously clutching her clothes, "Mother knows she was wrong... really knows she was wrong..." Every word seemed to be squeezed out of her chest, filled with bloody regret.
Countless images flashed through her mind: the embroidered handkerchief that Qingdai timidly offered, which she carelessly tossed away; while Qingdai had a persistent high fever, she was choosing a birthday gift for Yuwei; the most painful was that rainy night when she personally scolded the bruised and battered Qingdai, telling her not to upset her sister...
"Waaah... I'm sorry, Qingdai... Mother will love you and make it up to you for the rest of her life..." She reached out her hand, trembling, and sketched the beautiful future she imagined. "Mother will make you the most beautiful clothes, give you the best birthday banquet in the world, and give you the best of everything in the world..." As she spoke, she seemed to see Qingdai wearing brocade and fine clothes, smiling in her carefully decorated boudoir.
She wanted to give Xia Qingdai all the maternal love she had never given her...
There's still a long road ahead; she'll make it up to her...
However, just as her fingertips were about to touch the hem of Bai Ying's dress, the girl deftly took a step back. This tiny movement was like a sharp sword, shattering Madam Xia's carefully woven fantasy into pieces.
"Your relationship with Xia Qingdai," Bai Ying's voice was eerily calm, "was completely severed the moment you tried to kill her."
These words were like a final judgment, plunging Madam Xia into an abyss.
Her eyes were filled with despair as she looked at Bai Ying. She knew Qing Dai would never forgive her; she had indeed done something unforgivable. How could she have wanted to kill her own daughter...
She trembled violently and suddenly charged at a nearby boulder as if possessed. With a muffled thud, blood trickled down her forehead, staining half her face red.
"Is this...is this enough..." She collapsed to the ground, yet still stubbornly looked up at Bai Ying, her eyes gleaming with a sickly hope, "How about I give you my life..."
Bai Ying approached slowly, the moonlight casting a long shadow behind her. Madam Xia stared at the figure, and in a daze, she saw again the small figure that had always followed her when they first returned to the Xia residence. She reached out eagerly, as if trying to grasp something.
Bai Ying continued to look at her coldly, and slowly walked up to her.
When Madam Xia saw Bai Ying walking towards her, her heart started racing. She thought her daughter was finally starting to feel sorry for her.
It will be alright... she told herself, she and Qingdai would get back together.
She will spend the rest of her life happily with her daughter...
She vowed that she would definitely treat Xia Qingdai well.
"I forgive you..." Bai Ying suddenly spoke, and a startling light flashed in Madam Xia's eyes. However, the next second, the girl leaned down and whispered in her ear, "It's a pity the real Xia Qingdai can no longer hear you."
These words were like a bucket of ice water poured over Madam Xia's head. She stared wide-eyed at Bai Ying.
"When Xia Qingdai was tricked by Xia Yuwei into falling off the cliff," Bai Ying's voice was as light as a feather, yet as heavy as a thousand pounds, "she was truly dead... I am not the real Xia Qingdai, I merely borrowed her appearance..."
Madam Xia's pupils suddenly contracted. She suddenly grabbed Bai Ying's wrist like a madwoman, her nails digging deep into her flesh: "You're lying! My Qingdai is clearly standing right here!" Her hoarse voice was filled with a frenzied obsession.
Bai Ying sneered, and suddenly touched Madam Xia's brow with her fingertip. A golden light flashed, and Madam Xia felt dizzy, as an unfamiliar memory appeared before her eyes.
Beneath the desolate cliff, a small, solitary grave stands silently in the wind and snow. There is no tombstone in front of the grave, only a withered branch crookedly stuck in the mound of earth, with a faded hair ribbon tied to the end of the branch, the style that Qingdai often wore when she was alive.
In my memory, Bai Ying stood before the grave, adding the last handful of earth to the mound. She whispered, "Xia Qingdai, I will avenge you."
The scene shifts to Bai Ying making a blood oath before Qing Dai's remaining soul: "I will live on using your identity and make those who hurt you pay for their sins."
The memory abruptly ended.
Mrs. Xia collapsed to the ground, making a "woo-woo" sound in her throat.
She finally understood the compensation she had imagined so many times: the hairstyle she would style for Qingdai, the new clothes she would prepare, the birthday celebration she would have for her... but all of these things could never come to pass.
She hasn't celebrated Qingdai's birthday even once yet...
"No...no way..." She shook her head frantically, then suddenly lunged at Bai Ying. "You're lying to me! My Qingdai is alive! She's alive...I haven't been kind to her yet, my daughter...she can't be dead..."
Bai Ying easily dodged, watching the once-noble Madam Xia crawl through the dust like a madwoman. She said calmly, "Only now do you remember you're a mother? Too late."
Madam Xia suddenly fell silent. She stared blankly at her wrinkled hands, the same hands that had once easily lifted young Qingdai, yet had ultimately pushed her to her death.
It was precisely because of her and Xia Mingde's boundless tolerance of Xia Yuwei and their neglect of Qingdai that Qingdai died so mysteriously...
"Hahaha..." She suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, the sound mixed with blood and foam, "Retribution...this is all retribution..."
The sound of a morning bell drifted from afar. Bai Ying glanced at her one last time before turning and leaving. The rising sun cast her shadow long, long, like an unhealable wound, lying between Madam Xia and the truth.
Madam Xia sat there, clutching a handful of soil tightly in her arms, as if she could grasp the soul that had long since vanished.
In her hazy vision, she seemed to see again that small, thin figure that always hid behind the pillars and spied on her, gradually disappearing into the morning light.
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